1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns electric knives and, in particular, the drive mechanism therefor.
2. Description of Related Art
Known electric knives have complex drive mechanisms generally incorporating worm gear arrangements for converting rotational drive of a motor to linear reciprocation of the blades. Such knives are expensive, are difficult to assemble, require multiple parts having interdependent tolerances, and are subject to frequent failure due to the many parts. Additionally, the worm gear arrangements are not as efficient as spur gear sets imposing power requirements which generally preclude use of small motors or battery power.
Examples of such prior art electric knives are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,152,398; 3,300,857; 3,303,563; 3,357,102; 3,337,954; and 3,606,216.
The subject invention overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art by providing a simple drive mechanism having few parts and incorporating a spur gear set.
Additional advantages of the invention are set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention.